$5 Family Meals | FIVE Quick & Easy Cheap Dinner Recipes Made EASY!

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$5 MEALS | QUICK & EASY CHEAP DINNER RECIPES | CHEAP MEALS MADE EASY! Welcome back to my channel, Frugal Fit Mom.

Today we have seven tasty meals that cost under 5 dollars each! These are fast, easy, and most importantly, KID APPROVED.

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00:00 $5 family meals
00:50 Pasta with veggies
2:20 Cookie Bars
8:30 Ranch Chicken
10:00 Pancakes & Bacon
13:35 Chili
17:35 Curry
18:20 Muffins

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#frugalliving #cheapfood #frugalfitmom

I’m sure if you’ve looked at the price of food today you’re thinking oh my gosh I can’t even I really can’t even I can even even can’t even it’s not possible to feed my family on a budget anymore here in 2024 I agree with you the prices

Are redon but I am here to bring you a wide variety of recipes and meals you can feed your family for about $5 per meal feeding a family of about six I think you are going to love these recipes they are delicious so if you are excited about a good old-fashioned

Cooking video hook me up with a thumbs up maybe share this video with someone who might find it useful and have you subscribed yet that price hasn’t gone up at all it’s free let’s get cooking you know when you have those nights oh no why are you in the shot I didn’t know

Where you were going I you know how on those really busy nights you have your go-to like you run out and grab a pizza for my busy nights when I don’t know what the heck to make for dinner it’s pasta and usually it’s pasta with sausage because it is

Delicioso I always have it on hand I always have it in my pantry and I always have sausage of some kind in the freezer in this case it was Jimmy Dean sausage I got it on clearance I think it was $1.99 a pound it was amazing I buy the jars of

Pasta sauce when they’re mega mega on clearance stock up at that time like on sale or clearance stickers manager clearance stickers I am so sorry the dog is drinking like she’s never seen water what is happening right now oh my gosh that must be great water it’s

Good good Mountain Water and then I always buy pasta when is on sale like a dollar a box are around there so it makes a dinner that is well under $5 and can feed six people easily normally a box of pasta is supposed to feed eight people there’s eight servings in a box

Pasta and I happen to have some brussels sprouts in my fridge I wanted to use those up as well this is the best way to make any vegetable is you need to cut it up put it in a pan and you’re going to make a slurry of like butter and chicken

Stock and salt and pepper and you’re going to kind of simmer it a little bit in that until the vegies have like soaked up all of the liquid and a little bit of bacon never hurt anybody either these were the best brussels sprouts I

Have ever made in my life M pasta with a sided green veg can’t go wrong have you ever wanted to make a delicious homemade treat for your kids and cookies I mean am I right it’s the first thing that comes to your head at least it’s the

First thing that comes to my head you mean that’s fussy all right just give me Buck of cookies but who has the time not up in here instead we are going to take cookies and make cookie bars they taste the same they’re still delicious the

Cook time so much more hands off here in my mixer I have a Bosch but you could use a kitchen Ator or a hand mixer or whatever I will start with the essential for making cookies creaming the butter and the sugar and I did have a piece of

Bread in my brown sugar to soften it up let’s see H H maybe not long enough okay white sugar 3/4 a cup let’s chop this a little this reminds me of a movie oh this isn’t that bad this is okay okay I think the piece of bread and

The brown sugar like totally works I have one entire cup of butter that’s two sticks and while I’m kind of doing this I have to I have to ask you a question my friend had her daughter was accepted into a university that’s hard to get into a private university she got

Accepted they’re looking at the dorms um new students have to live in the dorms and they when you’re in the dorm you don’t have a kitchen so they’re looking at the meal plan and the meal plan for like going to the cafeteria you know unlimited meal plan

$2600 a semester that’s over $5,000 for two semesters I did the math just cuz I was curious okay go ahead and turn this on cream until lightning and fluffy after it’s creamed we will add one egg and one teaspoon is of vanilla let your heart be your guide on that one broken

Down per month we’re looking at $650 I spend less than that to feed my family of six that being said I realize I have some unique skills and great stores around me so not everyone can do that okay fair does it cost $650 to feed one college freshman that breaks down to

$722 per meal assuming 30 days in a month and three meals per day so I’m posing the question to you if you have kids going to college or you are a kid going to college you have to have the meal plan what is it costing you in fact

Just if you’re in college in general what is it costing you to feed yourself per meal per month is it $650 a month because I find that to be highly offensive mix this until combined next up is flour I think we have two two and 1/4 cups of flour are

Going to go in here right now so so I have 1 teaspoon of baking soda and half a teaspoon of salt then we’ll mix all the dry ingredients then we’re going to add the good stuff which is the chocolate chips and nuts if you like it like that if you

Don’t we can’t be friends just kidding or am I but I’m going to show you my secret for putting nuts and cookies for people that don’t really like nuts and cookies without them knowing there’s nuts and cookies I’m not talking about allergies just like people who think

They don’t like nuts and cookies so just haven’t tried it like this mix the dry ingredient in next come the chocolate chips we’re going to do one bag of chocolate chips and some might say I have a problem with hoarding chocolate chips I don’t have a problem you have a

Problem because I stock up when they are very cheap in December for the entire year so uh bags like this are down to like $125 a bag unheard of I know and then the good brands like n you Americans always butcher the French language those are going to be like

$1.99 a bag this will be one of the most expensive ingredients you make for your cookies unless you use real butter in that case that will probably tie boom one whole bag of chocolate chips oops oops if you don’t like nuts in your cookies it’s because number one you’re

Using the wrong nut and number two they’re too big so I have some pecans here because my daughter bought these um to make my birthday cake several months ago and these are just sitting in the pantry nuts do go bad they need to be used so I’m going to do

In my blender bottle cup you know about a cup and we don’t want to make pecan butter okay we want to make like dust pecan dust so I’m going to pop it on here and plug it [Applause] In so what you end up with are these tiny little pieces again this is not for people who are allergic it’s for people who don’t think they like nuts in their cookies my 12-year-old um who’s like oo nuts I don’t want it but if I do this he

Doesn’t even know so it’s not the flavor of the nut it’s probably the texture and the size and plug that back in and mix that together here comes the best part no not eating cookie dough although that is delicious okay get your baking dish

You can use a glass 9 by3 but mine has Rice Crispy Treats in it right now let testing a recipe okay um but I have this like old sketch metal one so we’ll use this you do not need to grease it because of the butter that is in the

Cookie wow okay I’m going use this knife to get all this out of there but you’re basically you’re going to dump the entire thing into this baking pan and toss the whole thing in the oven and then you’re done like it’s that easy and then by the time the kids are home from

School they’re going to be like Mom I love you I miss you today do your kids do that they’re going to give you a hug and they’re going to say what’s that amazing smell and you’re going to say it’s Cookie Bars and they will jump for

Joy and then go make your bed for you or detail your car wouldn’t that be amazing that would be quite the trick okay our whole thing goes into the van okay my oven is preheated at 375 and these will go in for about 20 to 25 minutes and

Then you do have to let them cool all the way and that my friend is all she wrote sometimes simple dinners are indeed the best tonight’s dinner stemmed from this Ranch night buttermilk chicken seasoning mix I picked up for $39 and because I do like to stock up on

Chicken when it is on sale I have this large package of chicken tenderloins I’m only going to use half the package for the dinner and I thought what would go great with ranch chicken mashed potatoes so we’re doing a chicken and mashed potato dinner we’ll see if we can scr up

Any other vegetables but this is simple and delicious as long as your food is seasoned well it’s going to taste good I don’t ever want you guys to feel like you can’t use shortcuts like a seasoning packet like a bottle of marinade or sauce and if that’s what you need to

Make dinners come together really really quickly give it some flavor when you just need to move through dinner prep quickly feel free to give it a go like don’t feel bad if you’re not making your own spice Blend or anything like that there’s always time for that later in

Your life here’s the secret to mashed potatoes I have an entire stick of butter and I’m also going to do an entire can of evaporated milk this is going to feed six people by the way don’t forget the salt and pepper I will never cease to be amazed at how the most

Simple ingredients can make the most delicious meal this was so good everyone loved it and yeah I did make a salad on the side what do you say today we make breakfast on a budget I’m talking pancakes now you don’t have to do this brand if you make them from scratch they

Will be the most delicious and they will be probably the cheapest this is Bob’s Red Mill I don’t know what the normal price of this is but I got it at the discount store for $79 let’s say you don’t have a discount store no sweat Walmart sells their Great

Value brand for about two bucks okay so $2 you can make the whole package is going to make a ton of Pancakes and but Christine pancakes that’s it for breakfast oh no my friend we’re also going to add a side of bacon these were on sale for

$2.99 so I have $3 here if you’re doing Walmart this would be $2 here this is an add water only booya we’re talking $5 for a bacon and pancake hyle breakfast whisk vigorously vigorously hey I’m going to take a quick second to interrupt the video to give you a finger update I’m

Sure you’ve seen this bandage or maybe it unbandaged throughout this video in case you didn’t know quick update I almost cut the end of my finger off about 2 months ago it has sealed took a long time at the moment I have pretty severe nerve damage and uh painful scar

Tissue compressing deep nerves I have seen all the doctors I have seen a hand surgeon I am currently going to PT who specializes in hands this bandage you see me wearing is a special silicone compression wrap that I’m supposed to wear quite bit I’m sure I have portrayed

On video um handling this current trial with Grace and sophistication but my friends it has not been the case behind the scenes I have been extremely frustrated uh there have been a lot of Tears shed I’ve felt incredibly limited and it’s been very painful there’s a lot

Of sadness that comes with an accident that affects your daily life for such a long time and when you experience things like that like if you’ve experienced things like that those feelings are real they are valid and I really believe that being able to talk to someone about them

Can be incredibly helpful as it has been for me I personally am so thankful to betterhelp for sponsoring today’s video I’m a huge fan of therapy especially when you’re going through something that’s really challenging and you just need someone to listen better help connects you to a licensed therapist who

Is trained to listen and help give you unbiased advice for something like an injury this is incredibly helpful you just go to their site you can use my link below it’s betterhelp.com Frugal fit answer a few questions it’s super easy and then they’re going to connect

You with someone who can help you my favorite part is you can do it all from the computer all from your house so I didn’t have to go anywhere driving is actually a little painful for me and to be honest instead of like harassing my

Husband and kids about um the pain I was in all the time it was nice to have a third party who has to listen to me complain no matter what you’re usually matched with a therapist within 48 hours so you can get started really quickly let better help help you connect to a

Therapist who can support you all from the comfort of your own home so just go to betterhelp.com Frugal fit it is is the first link down below so huge thanks to betterhelp um for helping me get through this physical trial of mine it’s amazing that something so small can

Cause so much aggravation and for those of you that have shared your personal fingertip injury stories in my comments the last few weeks I have read them so many times I have lost count it’s nice to hear a little bit of Hope from people who have gone through similar traumatic

Experiences and also it sounds like no one should ever use a mandolin like ever in their life make sure the blender is unplugged and don’t use a mandolin that is what I have learned from this experience from you guys anyway check out better help below and let’s get back

To more cooking today is a snow day which means all of my boys are home from school uh we don’t have those very often but because it’s so cold outside even though it look like spring or whatever chili is always a budget friendly go-to you can add whatever you like you can

Take out whatever you don’t like it feeds a crowd for not very much money I’m going to kick it off with some ground beef so I have had this in my freezer for a while but I still do see ground beef on sale for £2.99 a pound

Pretty frequently and I’m just going to Brown it up in this pan back here and while I do that my son is over there chopping the veggies which we will add next don’t forget to break up the meat with your handy dandy meat masher from Dollar Tree for only $125 it’s my

Favorite kitchen tool okay the ground beef is about there it’s still a hair pink but that’s not going to be a big deal cuz I’m still cooking it I like to add this garlic especially as I heal from a finger chop you know a nice generous dollop of roasted garlic had my

Son cut all the veggies so let’s add those now I have one whole onion uh I think four stock stalks stalks of celery and two green bell peppers going in uh all the veggies depending on where you buy them in the price is about $1150 for all of them

And I’m going to get these going in here until the onions are translucent and the rest of the veggies are soft then we will add the remainder of our ingredients I just have this chili powder I buy it in bulk I like it it’s good stuff for this amount like one

Pound of beef I like to do three heaping tablespoons because I like the flavor which reminds me did you guys ever watched that old TV show Flavor Flav so three heaping tablespoons is very close to 1/4 cup of chili powder let’s go ahead and throw all that in nice generous drizzle of wer

Sauce do not look at that expiration date yikes don’t worry it’s fine but did you die I also like to do some hot sauce uh this is the only one I happen to have at the moment whatever kind is fine it literally does not matter so a little

Bit of little bit of whoops all right little bit of spass I’m GNA kick it off with one can of Tomatoes I have a 28 o I believe I did pick this up at Dollar Tree this organic brand was only uh $125 so let’s toss

That in and then I think I’m going to add a little bit of water just to get the rest of that out I probably have like a whole cup of water in there I do like to add a little bit of salt about a teaspoon you can always add

More later now is kind of like use your intuition you’re cooking hard and soul so this looks a little dry to me so I’m thinking I might need more tomatoes so let me go get one more can of tomatoes and while my son’s running to get more

Tomatoes I’m going to add two cans of black beans I prefer to cook with dried beans and I prefer kidney beans or pinto beans in a chili but this is what I have and I’m just trying to utilize what is in my pantry who doesn’t love a black

Bean you know what I’m saying I did drain it uh but I did not rinse these I love to bulk up chili with beans because they are so affordable and they kind of take on the flavor of whatever it is that you are cooking best of used by

2024 this one’s even in date woohoo so lid on time to simmer for I like 30 minutes let’s go 30 minutes one of my favorite quick and simple dinners is chicken with a Jarred curry sauce with rice it is so easy it’s three ingredients I have about $2 $2 and half

Worth of chicken here added some salt and pepper it’s cooking in a little bit of bacon fat that I do save and keep in the fridge and you don’t have to use this brand of the coconut curry it’s my family’s favorite flavor you can get any

Brand you want so as soon as the chicken’s done I’m going to pour this all over the top and serve it alongside some rice that I am cooking up in my instant pot right now bam you have dinner in like 20 minutes no mus no fuss

And if you even want you could serve some vegetables on the side although not necessary in the morning for breakfast who doesn’t like a nice muffin but we don’t want to do like carbs on carbs on carbs on carbs at least some people don’t so I love to make muffins like the

Night before and then the morning of serve it alongside scrambled eggs scrambled is my favorite way you don’t have to do scrambled but I adore scrambled eggs I picked up this Betty Crocker Cinnamon Streusel muffin mix for .79 but even if you did have to pay full

Price at a place like Walmart they do have muffin mixes for just a couple of dollars if you don’t carry the items to make them from scratch so let’s mix this up I want to talk about college like I kind of talked earlier about the price

Of this meal plan for my friend friend’s daughter at this one school oh my gosh and I want to talk about my oldest son he’s a junior in high school right now and we’re testing the waters with the concurrent enrollment so you do college classes while you’re in high school and

Then they count for both right so the idea is that he graduates uh early he’ll do the majority of his senior year in online college courses so he doesn’t actually go to the high school that much and then finishes a little early we were going over everything today what’s

Required what he needs his senior year what can he take and there’s a couple things to note if your area offers this I can highly recommend first of all it eases their High School load quite a bit and freeze at their time especially if they work well in an online setting

Number two it is so cheap it is so cheap I think the courses are $150 point is it’s not that much we calculated out his credits he will have finished 15 credits by the time he finishes his junior year and then hoping to get another another 15 to 30 credits

His senior year so he will graduate high school with over an entire year of college credits that you don’t have to pay for housing that you don’t have to pay for food that you don’t have to pay for moving out and then whatever tuition is like I think that tuition ends up

Being a total of $1,000 the way we worked all the different things for over 30 credits so $1,000 in tuition for an entire year where he got to live at home so if you want to talk cheap college options it’s a really interesting option if you have

A kid that that would do well with that I’m not saying all kids would do well with that my daughter didn’t do that but it’s a really inexpensive way to get some college credits and kind of get them ahead a little bit especially for kids that already kind of know what they

Want to do for a career which is this kid already kind of knows what he wants to do so it feels a little easier than than sending a kid to college and being like I don’t know what what the heck you want to do but play around at college

For a few years I’m just saying that cuz that’s what I did I went to college because it was expected and you you had to go to like get a good job when I went to college but I didn’t know what the heck I wanted to do or what I wanted to

Study and I changed Majors like three times that I don’t really recommend anyway it’s a interesting learning experience for me trying to figure out the college landscape what your kids want to do and the most budget friendly way to accomplish it as well so do you have concurrent enrollment in your area

Have you taking advantage of it it’s kind of working for us I kind of like it not going to lie I am digging it if you have any Frugal family recipes that are go-to at your house leave those down in the comments so anybody else watching the video can also get some awesome

Ideas and I just wanted to thank you for hanging out with me today I’ll see you in the next video